Twelve-year-old Juhi Gupta loves her simple life in a remote Indian village. She and her mother and father might be poor, but they're happy. Then one day, everything changes. Her father heads to the doctor for a simple procedure-the removal of a rotten tooth-but instead, his kidney is stolen and sold on the black market. Juhi and her parents are kidnapped and dropped in a New Delhi slum. Separated from her parents, Juhi must quickly learn to survive. Luckily, she has a rare skill that's greatly in demand, especially in the slums: she knows how to read and write. At first, her quick wits allow her to thrive, but soon they attract unwanted attention, and she's faced with impossible decisions and desperate choices. Meanwhile, in the United States, Kevin Whitman is dying. No American doctor can help him, so he ventures to India for treatment. He has no idea that in so doing, he'll change Juhi's life forever.
Radhika's Story is a moving, first-hand account by a survivor of human trafficking. A chilling portrayal of the illegal and sordid underworld of trafficking in human organs, this title presents an incredible story of triumph over evil in the modern world. A seemingly innocent sip of Coca-Cola, drunk by a desperately thirsty 16-year-old girl, leads to the first of Radhika Phuyal's human trafficking experiences. The birth of her first son, Rohan, signifies the next horrific episode in Radhika's life - she is trafficked again. Living in India, separated from her son and forced to have sex with more than 20 men a day, Radhika refuses to accept her lot. Desperate to be reunited with her child, she finds the strength to escape her horrific life and rescue her son, changing their lives forever. Journalist Sharon Hendry tells Radhika's horrifying yet inspiring story. She highlights the pervasive nature of human trafficking in the 21st century, while demonstrating what a mother's love for a child can achieve when the odds are stacked dangerously against them both.
Five teens victimized by sex trafficking try to find their way to a new life in this “sincere and moving” (Booklist) companion to the #1 New York Times bestselling Tricks from Ellen Hopkins, author of Crank. In her bestselling novel, Tricks, Ellen Hopkins introduced us to five memorable characters tackling these enormous questions: Eden, the preacher’s daughter who turns tricks in Vegas and is helped into a child prostitution rescue; Seth, the gay farm boy disowned by his father who finds himself without money or resources other than his own body; Whitney, the privileged kid coaxed into the life by a pimp and whose dreams are ruined in a heroin haze; Ginger, who runs away from home with her girlfriend and is arrested for soliciting an undercover cop; and Cody, whose gambling habit forces him into the life, but who is shot and left for dead. And now, in Traffick, these five are faced with the toughest question of all: Is there a way out? How these five teenagers face the aftermath of their decisions and experiences is the soul of this story that exposes the dark, ferocious underbelly of the child trafficking trade. Heartwrenching and hopeful, Traffick takes us on five separate but intertwined journeys through the painful challenges of recovery, rehabilitation, and renewal to forgiveness and love. All the way home.
Every two minutes, evil strips innocence from a child and sells her into slavery for sex. Not in a third-world country, but in the United States of America. Before you take another breath, the next victim will be tricked or taken from her family by a profit-hungry criminal. She could be a neighbor. A friend.Your sister. Your daughter. You. At fourteen, Hope Ellis is the all-American girl with a good lifeuntil the day she tries to help her mom with their cross-town move by supervising the movers. When they finish, one of the men returns to the house and rapes her. Held silent by his threats, darkness begins to engulf her. But the rape proves to be the least of Hopes troubles. In a gasping attempt at normalcy, she succumbs to the attention of a smooth-talking man on the subway. He promises acceptance. He declares his love. He lures her out from under the shelter of her suburban life. Hopes disappearance sets a community in motion. Shes one of their own. They determine to find Hope, whatever the cost, before shes lost forever. Will you?
Illegal, inhuman, and impervious to recession, there is one trade that continues to thrive, just out of sight. The international sex trade criss-crosses the entire globe, a sinister network made up of criminal masterminds, local handlers, corrupt policemen, willfully blind politicians, eager consumers, and countless hapless women and children. In this ground-breaking work of investigative reporting, the celebrated journalist Lydia Cacho follows the trail of the traffickers and their victims from Mexico to Turkey, Thailand to Iraq, Georgia to the UK, to expose the trade's hidden links with the tourist industry, internet pornography, drugs and arms smuggling, the selling of body organs, money laundering, and even terrorism. This is an underground economy in which a sex slave can be bought for the price of a gun, but Cacho's powerful first-person interviews with mafiosi, pimps, prostitutes, and those who managed to escape from captivity makes it impossible to ignore the terrible human cost of this lucrative exchange. Shocking and sobering, Slavery Inc, is an exceptional book, both for the colossal scope of its enquiry, and for the tenacious bravery with which Cacho pursues the truth.
Even though this study was primarily on human traffi cking and prostitution among Edo women and girls of Edo state in Nigeria, human traffi cking, however, is a widespread, visible phenomenon in the world today. It is a global problem. A report from United Nations Offi ce on Drug and Crime in 2014 says that human traffi cking involves over three million people in the world, bringing their slaveholders an annual profi t of 32 billion dollars. According to the same report, there is no place in the world where children, women, and men are safe from human traffi cking. In the background, the stark reality of poverty, unemployment, social marginalization, political crises, wars, interethnic confl icts, and the militarization of entire territories has increased the massive displacements of the population, fuelling the illegal sex trade linked to them. Many youngsters who desire to improve their living conditions and those of their families fl eeing their homes often become prey to criminal organizations who take advantage of them, exploit them, and dehumanize them. Little do they know when they are leaving their homes to go to overseas, what is waiting for them is often something altogether diff erent, namely intimidation, blackmail, violence, nightmare, and slavery that strip them of all dignity and respect. To make matters worse, most of the victims and their families not only lose credibility but are also ostracized by their local communities when what happened comes to light. Th erefore, the victims of this painful chain are not only young girls and boys but also families. Unfortunately, some parents, especially mothers, have also been perpetrators of this deplorable crime. Th ey push their daughters into the arms of their torturers, lulled by the dream of a brighter future. To stop and to prevent the reoccurence of this criminal network of complicity, which has been more or less voluntary, conscious and unconscious, a joint commitment by all governments, organizations, local communities, and individuals is necessary. Everyone needs to remember and never forget that every human being, every person has been created and procreated in the image and likeness of God and is a subject of essential rights, which should never be violated but rather should be respected and upheld by everyone in every time and place.
Through her own gripping story of escape from human trafficking, Rebecca Bender reveals the inner workings of the underground world of modern-day slavery and helps us learn how we can be a catalyst for change where we live. Born and raised in a small Oregon town, all-American girl Rebecca Bender was a varsity athlete and honor roll student with a promising future. Then a predator pretending to be her boyfriend lured her into a web of lies that sent her down a path she never imagined possible. For nearly six years, Rebecca was sold across the underground world of sex trafficking in Las Vegas. She was branded, beaten, told when to sleep and what to wear, and traded between traffickers. Forced into a dark sisterhood, Rebecca formed bonds with her trafficker and three other women, creating a false sense of family. During that time, God began revealing himself to her. And in the midst of her exploitation, she found the hope she needed to survive. After a federal raid, Rebecca escaped. Her life was forever changed as she felt the embrace of her heavenly Father guiding her to healing and wholeness. Rebecca soon began to use her own experiences to change the lives of others as she went back into the darkest places she had known--assisting FBI, VICE, and law enforcement across the country in some of their most difficult cases. Through Rebecca's incredible story of redemption, we remember that our past does not have to determine our destiny.
In 1972, Barbara Amaya was 16 years old, leading a life far from a typical teenager and why she was Nobody's Girl. She had been sent to three detention centers, lived on the streets of, first, Washington DC and then New York City. Amaya was forced to work as a prostitute and was hooked on heroin. The ten years she spent as a victim in the world of human trafficking is just the beginning of her story.
This book is a critical feminist analysis of sex trafficking. In developed countries, sex trafficking has become a popular topic, where it is often treated as a unitary global phenomenon. Contrary to this opinion, the author argues that trafficking in girls and women is a product of the social construction of gender and other dimensions of power and status within a particular culture and at a particular historical moment. Providing a local, situated analysis of sex trafficking that does not regard women as universalized victims and assesses how the social construction of trafficking in a particular society affects girls and women and fosters effective interventions, this book focuses on the case of Nepal from where 5,000 to 7,000 Nepali girls and women are trafficked each year primarily to India. In a rapidly developing society just emerging from a decade-long civil conflict Nepali citizens are struggling not only with enormous political and social changes, but with developing new 'modern' identities. In this book, the author's voice as a woman, a feminist, and a social scientist immersed in a 'foreign' way of life illuminates aspects of this process and particularly spotlight the subjectivity of urban women. Moreover, it connects Nepali subjectivities with a problem of international significance, the trafficking of girls and women.
"Powerfully raw, deeply moving, and utterly authentic. Rachel Lloyd has turned a personal atrocity into triumph and is nothing less than a true hero.... Never again will you look at young girls on the street as one of 'those' women—you will only see little girls that are girls just like us." —Demi Moore, actress and activist With the power and verity of First They Killed My Father and A Long Way Gone, Rachel Lloyd’s riveting survivor story is the true tale of her hard-won escape from the commercial sex industry and her bold founding of GEMS, New York City’s Girls Education and Mentoring Service, to help countless other young girls escape "the life." Lloyd’s unflinchingly honest memoir is a powerful and unforgettable story of inhuman abuse, enduring hope, and the promise of redemption.
